Michael Kellough
Member
That’s a surprising low price for a 5amp battery from Festool!
It's That Time Of Year...
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RustE
Member
I would not wait too long on buying any of the Granat starter sets, because I think these are priced to clear-out inventory. For example, the D125 starter set was $125 before the August 2025 import fee raised the price to $132.50.
onocoffee
Member
This is VERY encouraging.
mino
Member
I am pretty sure Festool used their small sanders as 'loss-leaders' in the US at some point in the past. The Pro 5 notwithstanding.
Those sanders are still cheaper over there than in Europe, relatively speaking, but the discrepancy is not that big anymore. Though do keep in mind EU does not have fixed prices. Those Festool.de prices are not really indicative of the going rates at the counter. If you want a good ballpark for German prices, search using idealo.de for the item.
onocoffee
Member
I saw that the RTS 400 is upwards of 400 Euros on idealo. Perhaps FT.de doesn't bother with standardized pricing because they're more expensive than in North America?
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I really don't see the harm in posting a list of prices? It would just be a concentration of what the catalog already does, and since the prices are fixed, it's not like an advertisement.
I got an entire digital price list downloaded from Festool in 2024, so I doubt that would be the case. Easy to dump everything in Excel and publish.
When I worked at a dealership, I think we even got an Excel sheet from Festool with all the price changes. No NDA on it either.
mino
Member
It is not that. The EU sued Festool for it .. the prosecutor used an extended interpretation of the common EU trade laws on the edge to force Festool to abandon dealer pricing.
In practice this removed all 'protections' authorised dealers had from e-tail box-shifters just when e-tail was picking up steam, about 15 yrs ago.
That ruling effectively killed almost local Festool dealers who were one of the last holdouts of brick-and-mortar tool stores that were profitable. These days it is a 'free-for all' commodity market, so some great deals can be had on one hand but getting pretty much any advice from a seller even in a physical shop is a no-go. The qualified folks retired and no one will pay training a sales clerk that sells nothing .. the only few actual dealers worthy of the name specialise on the bigger contractor sales and supplies/accessories/spares/rentals for the small guys.
Most sales are on the lower-end of the prices you see on idealo. The higher-priced listings do not sell online and are there only to show the item is available. Should a known local come he would get a discount to /mostly/ match the e-tail price, assuming the item is in general production/available.
luvmytoolz
Member
I got all excited and was ready to pounce yesterday when I got an email showing the D150 set for $350AUD, until I realised it's only 20 discs of each size.
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Especially considering the proportionate cost of the tools.
RustE
Member
Yeah, it’s not a perfect solution since you might use all of one grit first.
In the U.S. market: the D150 Systainer is $81.00 and the 60-piece D150 Granat abrasive assortment is $69.00 for a total of $150.00 versus the starter set that is now $129.00 with twice the amount of abrasive.
mino
Member
The idea is that you then do not have to buy full 50/100 piece packs of grits that you rarely use. This is very appreciated for the higher grits which tend to not wear-out as fast.
$130 is a great deal for the starter set, they should keep it a permanent, even if a slightly more expensive down the line. The 10-packs set is a bit too little in my view on that front.
I’d like to add that German laws against fixed prices predate EU law by about 5 years or so. The "Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen" is from 1957, and the court confirmed the law against fixed prices in 1966. Sadly, even with this law in effect, it was not uncommon that manufacturers would bully dealers into compliance.
As far as I understand this, it was not the EU but the German Bundeskartellamt, the national competition authority, that fined TTS Tooltechnic Systems (Festool’s parent) €8.2 million in 2012 for vertical resale price maintenance. TTS pressured specialist retailers to follow its “non-binding” recommended prices through threats like contract suspension or worse terms. "TTS's competition law infringement could be proved in a series of hearings with personnel of the specialist trade involved. A representative selection of specialist outlets were questioned as witnesses and obliged to provide correct and complete information about the case."
"TTS has agreed to have the proceedings terminated by way of a settlement."
Here is the press release: https://www.bundeskartellamt.de/Sha...essemitteilungen/2012/20_08_2012_Festool.html
mino
Member
Thanks. Good to know. That the law is so old makes a bit of sense. So the EU regulation is actually Germany-based. Oh well ..
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As far as reality showed, that law is obsolete and is actively harmful in the internet age. What it does is the complete elimination of post-sales services to consumers whom it sought to protect.
What it did in 2000s is it ensured the complete destruction of the "small players" it sought to "protect" and the elimination of any post-sales services to consumers. Harming pretty much everyone in the the process. The only 'winners' being low-quality/garbage Chinese makers /not only of tools/ and huge multinationals of the Apple variety. As unintended a result as it was.
Yes, it is true there is a "thriving" e-tail market in Germany with many small mom&pop box shifters. The problem being those box shifters added value to a society is non-existent and their combined profits are miniscule /thus employment etc./ as compared an actual dealer network like Festool maintains in the US, for example. It is basically a /legally-mandated/ race-to-the-bottom.
Another case of a well-intended regulation destroying what it sought to protect.
Well, I am not a historian and I don’t know if the Rome Treaty and its section about anti-cartel measures were based on German law. Here’s what a quick search suggests: "This provision draws from American antitrust principles introduced via the 1951 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Treaty, particularly Articles 65-67, rather than national models. (…) EU competition law emerged from post-WWII efforts to integrate markets and prevent cartels, influenced by U.S. ideas adapted through the ECSC and Rome Treaty. Ordoliberal thought from Germany’s Freiburg School shaped concepts like abuse of dominance, impacting both German law (GWB, 1957) and EU rules, but EU provisions were directly drafted in treaties independently. German GWB paralleled EU rules due to shared influences, not vice versa."